Concept of Home
What is home? Defining home can be considered as a pretty subjective thing, even though various literary works have been created trying to define the concept of home. Frank Baum’s novel, Wizard of Oz is one of them. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s produced movie in 1939, Wizard of Oz, tries to depict book’s main messages more vividly by different techniques such as colors contrast. This film is seen during childhood years for fun but watching it for one more time in adulthood can provide different perception. The beauty of this movie is not just presenting ideas which are addressed in the book but many other elements such as characters, music background, and colorful scenes make this film piece of art in its aesthetic way. Briefly, to explain the plot of this movie, it is about a young girl, Dorothy. Dorothy lives in Kansas with Aunt, Uncle, and dog Toto. Sudden tornado hit takes Dorothy and her dog to a magical world of Oz and basically, the whole movie is about Dorothy’s adventurous journey in this supernatural place. The contrast between Oz and Kansas and Dorothy’s attitude to those places is a key theme of the movie. Dorothy’s feelings and attitude depict exactly what can be considered as a home definition. Home is not a place where you physically are, home is a place where your heart belongs.
From the beginning of the movie, we see that Kansas is shown in grayish and black and white colors while Oz is such a colorful place, which creates a sense of contrast and feeling that Oz is a way much better place than Kansas. British Indian noteworthy novelist Salman Rushdie mentions in his film critique of Wizard of Oz that “Anywhere looks better than that” (NewYorker.com). This phrase perfectly describes why Kansas is shown as a colorless place while everything else is colorful in the movie. It is just because anywhere else is better than Kansas. Interesting thing is that even though Kansas is portrayed as such a terrible place and especially if we compare it to Oz but still Dorothy wishes to return to that colorless place. Salman Rushdie continues to disapprove idea of Kansas and Dorothy’s wish of returning. “there is no longer such place as home: except, of course, for the home we make, or the homes that are made for us, in Oz, which is anywhere, and everywhere, except the place from which we began.” (newyorker.com). Salman believes that becoming independent and adult requires changing of the home, so that place wherever you began is not important anymore. I do not agree with that point that home is just everywhere except beginning place because of no matter if you change physical living space or not you will always have a strong emotional bond with the place wherever you began a journey of the life. I am not implying that you should forever stay as a child in your first home but just it does not matter if you move to better place that the first one will always matter and forever stay in our hearts. I think the emotional connection is the key thing in life and that we define everything according to what that specific thing/place/person means to us. And I believe the same thing applies the concept of home as well. As long as something stays in our hearts and we are emotionally attached to that thing it means that it is the real thing not place where we physically are at that time.
In the movie’s opening scene, a theme of conflict between adults and children comes out. In the first scene, Dorothy is worried about the fact that Miss Gulch has threatened her dog, Toto and she runs to Auntie and Uncle for help, however, parents’ attitude shows that they do not care about it. Auntie and Uncle do not even listen to what is the matter with Dorothy while for Dorothy, Toto is the most important thing. Based on that scene, Salman Rushdie makes a statement that it is due to adults’ incorrect behavior why Dorothy has to take her journey to Oz. “at its beginning, the weakness of grown-ups force a child to take control of her own destiny (and her dog’s.)” (newyorker.com) What Salman Rushdie means by mentioning “the weakness of grown-ups” is that adults are misunderstanding young girl. Adults do not know what children want and that is the biggest problem. Reason of this misunderstanding is that adults only care about stuff which they think is important for their children and not about the stuff which in reality is important for them. Uncle and Auntie are not only ones who misunderstand their children, but mostly all of the adults also do the same. Even Salman Rushdie mentions that he is also one of those weak adults. “Now I am a member of the tribe of imperfect parents who cannot listen to their children’s voices. (newyorker.com) It is a kind of destiny for every adult to have difficulties with understanding their children’s voices. It is a pretty natural thing because of the age gap. Even though this misunderstanding exists still it does not mean that we should forfeit our childhood home and stay away from parents. I do not agree with Salman Rushdie’s evaluation of Dorothy’s situation. Salman Rushdie is a supporter of Dorothy leaving Kansas forever and his logic for that is that Kansas is a such an ugly place and also that she should go on her journey and step into adulthood because she is not understood at home. “Must we accept that she now accepts the limitations of her home life, and agrees that the things she doesn’t have there is no loss to her?” (newyorker.com) Biggest criticism goes to Dorothy because after having a journey in Oz, she still returns to Kansas and Salman considers it to be an incorrect decision. I do not think that being adult means that you should definitely leave your home and just because parents cannot understand you, you should leave for another place. So, leaving home and becoming an adult does not directly correlate with each other. Dorothy can still live in Kansas while becoming independent. There exists no rationality for doing whatever feels better for you, so for Dorothy returning home was a better thing than staying in the Oz, while for someone else it might be different.
In conclusion, while many may argue such as Salman Rushdie that “there is no such a thing as home” it still turns out that some concept which can be called home still exists. Home does not have to be a physical place, it is just anywhere where your heart belongs and wherever you free most comfortable. Perception of the home is just about emotions and feelings. I believe that the concept of home is an existing thing and even a person can be home for someone. Salman’s point about adults and children misunderstanding is agreeable for me, just the thing is that I see no correlation between the thing that to get an adult you have to leave your home. Dorothy’s journey can be described in a way that she did took the journey in the magic world of Oz and even though it does not seem quite directly that her maturity has increased, it happened. An episode of Dorothy’s victorious battle over which indicates to the fact that the girl has grown up at least a bit. Summing up of that thing would be that Dorothy gained some experience during her adventurous journey but she still felt that returning home was a better thing. Even though Oz was a way much better place, Dorothy’s heart always belonged to Kansas and emotional connection is what matters not just what is better and what is worse.
Works Cited:
Wizard of Oz, Victor Fleming, 1939.